Squeeze Play: Trio of Accordionists at the Grand

Cory Pesaturo remains the youngest person to win the National Accordion Championships almost 25 years after he achieved the feat in 2002. He’s the only one to ever claim the Triple Crown of World Championships, notching victories on Acoustic, Digital, and Jazz Accordion. Pesaturo was the first musician ever to major and graduate in the accordion at New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. He’s delivered two popular TED Talks, played at the White House for Bill and Hillary Clinton as a pre-teen, and a dozen other times for the couple both in D.C. and beyond. His TV appearances include the Late Show with David Letterman (with Johnny Depp), he gives master classes on both music theory and the accordion at various universities throughout the U.S. and Europe, and performs around the world in a variety of musical settings, from Italian music festivals to Klezmer folk songs, Bulgarian traditionals, and classical music, including performances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. 

Pesaturo, a huge Formula 1 racing fan, once played the accordion in a race car driven at 180 mph by Mario Andretti at the Indianapolis Speedway, where he tore through Rossini’s “William Tell Overture.” And we haven’t even mentioned his main musical love; jazz. 

But chances are that you’ve never heard of him. Unless, of course, you’re a big fan of the accordion. 

“The accordion is not cool,” Pesaturo explained over the phone amid roaring engines at the Monterey Car Week recently. “It’s been seen as second class ever since after the Lawrence Welk days when Art Van Damme made it very popular through the early ‘60s. Nothing’s really happened since.”

Indeed, young Cory only took up the instrument at the insistence of his father, who had himself given it up earlier. 

“He quit when everybody else did – when no girl would date an accordion player,” he said. “But he took it out again when I was nine, and then ‘asked’ me to play, the way an Italian father asks, which means ‘you better.’” 

Pesaturo found himself quickly getting good, a result of his competitive nature rather than any innate skill, he said. 

“I love sports, but I sucked at sports. But when I started playing accordion, I was progressing much quicker than everybody else. So I treated music, as I really still do today, as a sport. Which is true. It is absolutely a competitive sport… The thing is, I didn’t love to play it. I did it because of the competition aspect. But then once I found jazz, that’s when I started saying, ‘Huh, okay, this is actually pretty sweet.’”

It’s in that jazz realm that Pesaturo will be performing in Santa Barbara in a special accordion trio night on August 20 at The Grand on State, the new upscale jazz club/restaurant co-owned by keyboardist Brian Mann, a highly respected accordionist in his own right. They’ll be joined by Júlia Masnicová, a Slovak accordionist, singer, composer and arranger, who Pesaturo said is making her American debut, first joining him in Northern California before the sojourn south to Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. 

“I don’t know what the heck we’re going to play,” Pesaturo said. “But Brian and I can pretty much play anything, so we’ll figure it out. And with Julia, I think we’ll all do stuff individually and as duos and a trio, so people can see how we do things differently. I’m sure there are some tunes that we can all do together. Three accordions is the limit of legality in California, anyway.” 

Masnicová might actually be the most accomplished accordionist of the trio, Pesaturo allowed, which might seem ironic given his awards and records. (“My dad says about the World Championships, ‘That and $2 won’t get you a cup of coffee.’”) But technical skill is not the only issue, he said. 

“It’s about being a tremendous musician. When I was at NEC, I studied with drummers and they’re like, ‘How do you learn accordion from drums?’ Um… time and polyrhythms and so many important things to learn. Pianists and bass players and trumpet players, they learn from everybody there. It’s not only about your instrument. You’ve already got that dialed in before you get the NEC.” 

Speaking of which, the trio of accordionists will be accompanied by famed local drummer Kevin Winard, a jazz wizard who can play in any of their styles. Pesaturo said he’s looking forward to the show for the chance to improvise alone and with Mann and Winard, seeing where their intuition and interplay leads.

“I imagine there’ll be a lot of back and forth between Brian and me,” he said. “It’s going to be really fun.” 

That includes experimenting with one of Pesaturo’s favorite instruments, his electronic-digital accordion. 

“It’s tremendously versatile,” he said. “We already have bass chords and the melody, and total control of the phrasing with the bellows, but the digital adds in all the sounds. I can have touch sensitivity on instruments like piano and guitar, or anything really that you would hit or pluck with velocity sensitivity. And I still have the organ or violin or a clarinet, or what have you. What it does for me is amplify why the accordion is the best instrument ever.”

If Pesaturo has his way, other people might start thinking that way too. 

Reservations at www.thegrandonstate.com

Miles Ahead 

Next up in The Grand’s Visiting Artist Series: Grammy-winning trumpeter Terell Stafford, whose credits include multiple recordings with his own quintet and with such jazz luminaries as Benny Golson, Jimmy Heath, and Kenny Barron. A regular with the Village Vanguard Jazz Orchestra in New York City and director of Jazz Studies at Temple University, Stafford will perform on September 9 as a duo with Tamir Hendelman, the Israeli-born pianist with a long list of jazz accomplishments. The concert will be a tribute to Miles Davis, the latest local show celebrating the centennial year of the legendary trumpeter’s birth. 

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